Medicines and Health Regulatory Authority

The bulletin of the British Pharmacological Society, Pharmacology Matters, declined to publish the following article. Sadly the Society seems to be more interested in "reputation management" than in truth. Luckily, it is not easy to suppress criticism these days. A version of the article has appeared in Research Fortnight where it will be seen by far more people than it would have been in Pharmacology Matters. This is the original version that I submitted to them. They would not allow me to quote Lewis’s comment (apropos of the sale of homeopathic meningitis vaccine)

“Children will be harmed by this inaction. Children will die. And the fault must lie with Professor Sir Kent Woods, chairman of the regulator [MHRA].”

If a child were to die of whooping cough or meningitis as a result of buying the fraudulent "vaccines", that would be true. It’s a sad reflection on the state of defamation law that journals are not willing to say so. Blogs are fast becoming the best source of reliable information.

Stop press. The BPS has now signed up to Alltrials (too late for the printed version)

Pharmacology society does little to defend its subject

David Colquhoun

Over the past few years a courageous group of writers, researchers and activists has worked to expose the truth about the medicines we are sold, be they conventional or alternative.

Thanks, above all, to Ben Goldacre (1), more people than ever know that the big pharma companies have been concealing evidence of the harm that their products do, or the good they fail to do. Thanks to a small army of bloggers the preposterous claims made by peddlers of homeopathic remedies and other quackery are less likely to go unchallenged.

And yet, the organization charged with safeguarding the good name of pharmacology in this country, the British Pharmacological Society (BPS), has remained silent throughout.

The pharmaceutical industry

The BPS, rather than helping, became actively complicit when, along with much of the medical establishment, it signed an agreement with the ABPI (2). This document, developed under the aegis of the Ethical Standards in Health & Life Sciences Group (ESHLSG), contained two objectionable clauses:

“Industry plays a valid and important role in the provision of medical education”

And

“Medical representatives can be a useful resource for healthcare professionals”

Given that clinical “education” has long been part of Pharma’s marketing strategy, this seems disgraceful. And most of the doctors I know and respect refuse to see reps altogether. It is hopelessly optimistic to think that can an industry person can teach clinical pharmacology without bias in favour of his own company’s products. The BPS has many members who teach pharmacology. Can they really cope so badly that we need to have industry to educate clinicians?

It’s fine, and sometimes desirable, for academics and industry to work together on drug development. But only as long as the industry partner has no say in how, or whether, the results are published. Without that proviso we can expect more corruption of the sort that’s been seen at the University of Sheffield (3).

This is very sad, because I have great reason to like the drug industry. I’ve benefitted from several of their products myself. But the industry is in trouble. Many of its products provide only marginal benefits. Furthermore, some of the things that seemed to be useful, like SSRI antidepressants, have turned out to be next to useless once hidden trials were revealed (4). The MHRA’s learning module on SSRIs doesn’t seem to have caught up with this yet.

Sadly, the reaction of industry has been to resort to dishonesty, to hide unfavourable data and to increase yet more what it spends on marketing. Between 2009 and 2012, fines of at least 10 billion dollars (5) have been imposed on some of the most eminent companies. They include Lilly, Pfizer, AstraZeneca, Merck, Abbott and GlaxoSmithKline (GSK). The biggest fine of all ($3 bn, in July 2012) went to a British company, GSK. This succession of large fines seems to be regarded by the companies as mere marketing expenses.

All these fines were levied in the USA. Where, one might ask, are the regulators in the UK? Why have there been no fines here? Why, indeed, are some of the senior managers of these companies not in jail? Why has the BPS remained silent about the prostitution of its subject? And why have the MHRA done so little to stop it?

I suggest that you support the petition for release of the results of all trials (6). It’s been supported by many individuals and a lot of organisations, including the BMJ and the Royal Statistical Society. But, disgracefully, not by the BPS.

Quackery

At least in the case of the pharmaceutical industry some of its products work. But pharmacologists should also be concerned about the quackery industry, worth about 60 billion dollars per year (as opposed to $600 bn for the pharmaceutical industry). Virtually none of their products work (7). Why has the BPS said so little about it? It has, along with most of the medical and university establishment, shrugged its shoulders about the fact that students at Westminster University have been shown dowsing with a pendulum as a method for selection of herbal “remedies”, as part of a Bachelor or “Science” degree. It is an area in which every regulatory agency has failed to ensure even minimal levels of honesty (8). And the BPS has just shrugged.

The MHRA has been worse than useless in this area: it has been actively unhelpful (9). The senior staff of the MHRA are members of the BPS which has, as usual, said next to nothing. The MHRA’s herbal medicine committee has allowed misleading labels that give indications to be put on herbal potions, and these labels fail to make it clear that no evidence whatsoever of efficacy is required to get the MHRA kitemark. The wording was suggested (not required) by European law, but that law does not prevent the MHRA from saying, as it should, “there is no reason to think that this product is effective for any of the indications on the label” (10). Arguably, the MHRA is in breach of Consumer Protection law (11, 12).

At the time, the BPS did make some objection to the labelling (13), but only under great pressure from me (indeed I wrote it) . That has not been followed up, and I can no longer find it on the BPS web site. Indeed Philip Routledge, one of the people who is responsible for the misinformation in his capacity as chair of the MHRA Herbal Medicines Advisory Committee, is, at present the president of the BPS.

The MHRA has also been responsible for misleading labelling of the products of the most obviously fraudulent products of the lot: homeopathic pills, the medicines that contain no medicine. Most of the pills (anything beyond 12x dilution) contain not a single molecule of the substance on the label. Yet they have been given a get-out clause that enables them to evade prosecution by Trading Standards (an organisation that consistently fails to apply consumer protection laws. Rose et al (2011) (12) concluded

It is simply bizarre that the people at the MHRA, many of who are BPS members, have sat round a table and approved the following label. This example is for Arnica 30C pills, which, of course, contain no trace of arnica (14, 8). The outcome of their deliberations is simply surreal (see the actual labels here).

"Used within the homeopathic tradition for the symptomatic relief of sprains, muscular ache; and bruising or swelling after contusions."

This will deceive the naïve into thinking that it will have some effect on sprains etc. It won’t. And the MHRA have declined to test how the label is perceived by the public, though it took some effort to get them to admit it.

"If you are allergic to any of the ingredients in this medicine, consult your doctor before taking this medicine."

The ingredients aren’t stated apart from “contains lactose and sucrose”. That’s all they contain. No arnica.

"If pregnant or breastfeeding consult your doctor before use."

Why should a few mg of lactose and sucrose have the slightest effect on a pregnant or breast-feeding mother. This is pure make-believe

"If you forget to take this product, continue to take your usual dose at the usual time, it does not matter if you have missed a dose. Do not take a double dose to make up for a missed dose."

This statement is even more bizarre. There is nothing in the pills.

"If you take too much of this product (overdose) speak to a doctor or pharmacist and take this label with you."

And this is the ultimate in nonsense. The 1023 campaign regularly swallows whole bottles, and of course nothing happens. You can’t overdose on nothing. The fact that the MHRA can insist on this label, with a straight face, is the ultimate betrayal of science and reason.

"When asked to comment, as part of the consultation on these rules, this was the response from the BPS."

This is extracted from page 16 of the “selected response” provided by the MHRA under a Freedom of Information Act request [download all]

Things have changed little since A.J. Clark wrote his book on Patent Medicines in 1938 (15). And the BPS has done next to nothing to help. Neither has the MHRA. In fact both have colluded in the failures of both honesty and reason.

A BBC South West program recently revealed that a pharmacist was selling “homeopathic vaccines” for whooping cough and meningitis (16). The MHRA have know about his homicidal practice for years, but have done nothing. The General Pharmaceutical Council let him off with a rap on the knuckles. It has been left to bloggers and TV reporters to focus attention on these scoundrels. The well-respected blogger, Andy Lewis, wrote (17)

“Children will be harmed by this inaction. Children will die. And the fault must lie with Professor Sir Kent Woods, chairman of the regulator [MHRA].”

I have been a member of the BPS for all my working life. I was happy when they made me an honorary fellow. But I now find myself asking if I can remain a member of an organisation that has done so little to defend honest scientific behaviour.

Follow-up

25 February 2013 This post has some follow-up even before it appeared on Research Research. I noticed on the BPS web site a press release “BPS announces intention to sign All Trials Petition“. It was dated 20th February, but I didn’t notice it until after the printed edition went to press. It was expressed as a future intention to sign, though in fact they signed almost straight away (though over 100 organisations had already done so). That’s good. I suspect that when my old friend, Humphrey Rang, who is president elect of the BPS, takes charge, the Society may start to take its responsibilities to the public more seriously than it has in the past.

The MHRA, on the other hand, is still evading its self-declared job of ensuring the public that drugs work.

13 March 2013. A reply to this piece appeared in red on Research Research, The British Pharmacological Society champions its science. It was written by Humphrey Rang who, as president elect of the BPS naturally felt obliged to defend its record. He defends the BPS membership of ESHLSG, but fails to mention that first the Lancet and then the BMA withdrew their support. Nor does he mention that medical students and doctors launched a campaign, BadGuidelines.org, against the agreement. The Medical Schools Council, which also signed the agreement, said "the scrutiny of the guidance has ‘identified deficiencies in the current statement". Didn’t they read it before signing? Rang says that the BPS is also working to improve the joint statement with the ABPI. That’s good, but one must wonder why the BPS signed up to the original form.

On the points about quackery, Rang sites the BPS statement on homeopathy (now vanished) but fails to mention that that statement was written by me in an attempt to wake the BPS from it’s slumbers on the matter of medicines that don’t work. But he doesn’t mention at all the matter of mislabelling of both homeopathic and herbal preparations.

Of course, the BPS does many good things. But like most organisations, it is too reluctant to speak out when it sees wrongdoing, and too reluctant to say "sorry we made a cock-up that time".

Which? Magazine (the UK equivalent of Consumer Reports in the USA) has done it again. They published an excellent article, Health products you don’t need. It’s a worthy successor to their recent debunking of “nutritional therapists”. Most of the products in question, apart from Bach Rescue Remedy Spray, were not outright quackery like homeopathy or "detox" products. Rather they were old-fashioned pharmaceutical products that were quite respectable in the 1950s but which have subsequently been found not to work.

These are the things that were looked at.

Benylin Chesty Coughs (Non-Drowsy)

Benylin Tickly Coughs (Non-Drowsy)

Covonia Herbal Mucus
Cough Syrup

Boots Cold and Flu Relief
Tablets

Adios Slimming Tablets

Bio-Oil

Seven Seas Jointcare Be Active

Bach Rescue Remedy
Spray

It’s an interesting and large category, and its one that I grew up with. My first job, in the 1950s was as an apprentice in Timothy Whites & Taylors Homeopathic Chemists in Grange Road, Birkenhead (you can’t have a much humbler start than that). Don’t worry about he homeopathic bit. We had one homeopathic prescription in two years, which was made up with great hilarity. These were the days before the endarkenment.

We did, however, sell a lot of "tonics" and "cough medicines". Two popular brands were Metatone Tonic and Minadex Tonic. I was quite surprised to discover that they are still on sale. Even in the 1950s I was a bit sceptical about what a "tonic" was supposed to achieve. The term soon became extinct as it was slowly realised that no examples existed.

Here is the bad news. It is scarcely an exaggeration to assert the following.

Nothing is known that alters the time course of a cold.

There is nothing that you can buy that will suppress a cough*.

There is no such thing as a "demulcent" or an "expectorant"

There is no such thing as a "tonic".

It would be nice if these things existed, but they are figments of the imagination. Nonetheless they sell by the truckload and vast amounts of money are made by selling them.

How can this happen? We have the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is the government agency which is responsible for ensuring that medicines and medical devices work, and are acceptably safe.

Demulcents

In the 1950s this was a more or less respectable term. If you google it now, almost all the references come from herbalists, It is, almost entirely, part of the world of quackery. Apart, that is, from the MHRA. And NHS Evidence. It was surprising to find, in a 2009 document from the MHRA

"Simple cough mixtures containing a demulcent, for example glycerin, and syrup can have a soothing effect by coating the throat and relieving the irritation which causes the cough"

No reference is given, and I’m not aware of the slightest reason to think that there is any such effect. Syrup in your respiratory tract is a bit of a disaster.

But the same document says

There are severe limitations to the efficacy studies given that many of the products were first introduced decades ago. There has been no co-ordinated development program to establish efficacy. What trials there are have not been carried out to current standards.

"We found no good evidence for or against the effectiveness of over-the-counter (OTC) medications in acute cough, which confirms the findings of two previous reviews (Anonymous 1999; Smith 1993)."

What the MHRA tell me

I was puzzled by the apparently unjustified statements on the MHRA site so I asked them about the eight products that were investigated by Which? magazine (see above). I asked them also about Metatone and Minadex "tonics"

The questions, and the responses can be downloaded here. (I merely asked some reasonable questions, but the MHRA chose to treat them as a request under the Freedom of Information Act).

The first five items all have full marketing authorisation, as do Metatone and Minadex "tonics".

"Metatone (PL-02855/0017), Covonia Herbal Mucus Cough Syrup, Cold and Flu Relief Tablets and Adios Tablets originally held Product Licences of Right. These products were on the market before the Medicines Act 1968 came into force in 1971. These licences were reviewed in the 1980s to ensure that the products were safe, of suitable quality and have evidence of efficacy. Because of the length of time that the products had been on the market they were considered to have well established use and original clinical data to today’s standards was not necessarily available."

The MHRA tell me that they have no copies of the reviews conducted in the 1980s, apart from one. They sent a scanned copy of the August 1988 expert review of Covania syrup (the ingredients have changed since than).

The document is like an antique. It simply repeats the old myths. The names of the "expert reviewers" have been hidden. Given the quality of the review, perhaps that isn’t surprising, but the MHRA should not be so secretive.

There is no such thing as a "tonic", so I asked the MHRA about that too.

Q.5 Can you tell me what criteria the MHRA uses when allowing a product to be advertised as a "tonic"?
R.5 The MHRA assesses proposed product names on a case by case basis. On the basis of the well established use of Minadex Tonic it was decided that the use of the word tonic in the product name was acceptable. For the same reason, it was accepted that Metatone could be referred to as a tonic in the Product Information Leaflet and product labels

In other words, we let them get away with it because it’s old.

I had always understood that when the MHRA grants "Marketing authorisation", that meant there was some guarantee that the product worked. You’d infer that from the MHRA’s own definition.(my emphasis)

"Medicines which meet the standards of safety, quality and efficacy are granted a marketing authorisation (previously a product licence),"

Sadly, it seems that this isn’t true, at least for old-established products, those that were on the market before the Medicines Act (1968) came into force in 1971.

Conclusion

Although old products which were on the market before 1971 were supposed to be reviewed for efficacy and safety. This hasn’t been done efficiently. The make-believe has simply been perpetuated. I have no objection to people buying benylin etc, but they should not have full marketing authorisation and they should be labelled accurately so that it is clear that there is very little evidence that they’ll do you much good. The MHRA has let down the public, just as it did when it allowed misleading labels on homeopathic and herbal potions.

Postscript

After writing this, I discovered a very recent paper about guaifenesin (Seagrave et al, 2012), This paper shows some effects on mucus secretion in cultured human cells (not in humans) with prolonged exposure to concentrations of 30 and 100 µM. This is an order of magnitude greater than the peak blood concentration (7 µM. = 1.4 µg/ml) that is achieved (transiently) in man (Maynard & Bruce, 1970). This is not mentioned in the paper. I’m sure that has nothing to do with what we read at the end of the paper.

Competing interest
JS has received research funds from Reckitt Benckiser. HHA is a consultant to Reckitt Benckiser and is the co-author of a Mucinex sustained-release guaifenesin) patent. DBH has received research funds and consultancy payments from Reckitt Benckiser. DFR has received consultancy payments from Reckitt Benckiser. GS is an employee of Reckitt Benckiser and is also a co-author of a Mucinex (sustained-release guaifenfesin) patent.

Acknowledgements
This study was funded by Reckitt Benckiser Healthcare International Ltd. Assistance with manuscript submission was provided by Elements Communications Ltd, supported by Reckitt Benckiser Healthcare International Ltd.

On 15 October 2010, Reckitt Benckiser was fined £10.2 m by the Office of Fair Trading after the company admitted anti-competitive behaviour.

Follow-up

Shortly after this post went up. I was attacked on twitter by @iHealthP. That’s a company, http://www.ihealthpartnership.com (the tweeter declined to reveal their identity). It started thus.

Your article asserts that “There is nothing that will suppress a cough.” This is bollocks, pure & simple.

The interchange was one of those less pleasant Twitter moments (I’ve Storifed some of it in case anyone is interested). The discussion did throw up a few useful references though. @LeCanardNoir pointed out a 2007 paper which concludes

"Clearly the widespread notion that codeine is an effective cough suppressant is not supported by the available evidence."

“There are no effective treatments controlling the cough response per se with an acceptable therapeutic ratio.”

That, of course, is exactly what I said.

There was, however, one reference produced by @iHealthP for which I’m grateful. It doesn’t concern over-the-counter cough treatments (which is what this post is about), but morphine. It does, though, produce some evidence that morphine does work to some extent as a cough suppressant. Amazingly this "well-known truth" was not demonstrated until 2006. The paper, Opiate Therapy in Chronic Cough, by Morice et al., 2006. shows a convincing effect of morphine (5 or 10 mg twice a day) on chronic cough. The main caveat lies in the reported side effects: constipation (40%) and drowsiness (25%). Obvious side-effects can make the trial non-blind. In any case, none of this is relevant to the present post (though I altered the blog to refer to it).

I hate to be forced to return to the world’s most boring delusion, homeopathy. It is boring because the battle to inform people how daft it is has been almost won. Now not a single Bachelors degree in homeopathy appears in UCAS, compared with at least five in 2007. But the battle is not quite won with the UK Government. This post is not so much about homeopathy as about the failures of the Government and the MHRA.

The Medicines and Health Regulatory Authority (MHRA), has just launched yet another consultation and I have felt obliged to waste an entire Sunday writing a response to it, I can’t imagine that any scientist would disagree much with what I have written, but most of them have far better ways to spend their time than bothering about the lunatic fringes of medicine. No doubt most of the responses will come from people who make money from homeopathy, Not just the homeopaths on the High Street, but also the very rich companies like Boiron and Weleda who make enormous profits from selling pills that contain nothing but a bit of sugar.

The documents

The consultation concerns what should be done, about homeopathy in the wake of the scarifying report of the House of Commons Select Committee [get pdf], and the governments response to that report [get pdf].

Now I’ll filll in some of the background and outline why I think the MHRA still hasn’t understood.

The Medicines Act 1968 and PLRs

The Medicines Act (1968) was passed in the wake of the thalidomide disaster. It required evidence that medicines work and that they are safe. It was not possible to check all existing medicines by the time the Act was implemented in 1971, so, as a temporary measure, many medicines, including homeopathic stuff, were give a "public licence of right" (PLR). Forty years later they have mostly vanished. But not for homeopathy. The PLR is the licence that allows homeopaths to break all the rules. They still exist.

MHRA cocked it up in 2006

The story starts with the National Regulation Scheme for homeopathic junk that was introduced by the MHRA in 2006. This allowed, for the first time, indications to be put on the labels of the bottles of sugar pills. There were howls of outrage from just about every scientific organisation (the medical establishment was, as usual, more pusillanimous, with some honourable exceptions). The history is related here in the following posts.

This was an admirable effort, It extracted, with some difficulty, admissions from Boots’ professional standards director that the sold pills while knowing that they didn’t work. It also squeezed out of the then Health Minister, Mike O’Brien an admission that they don’t work, Less surprisingly, the head of the MHRA agreed that they don’t work. So it is unanimous (apart, of course, from those who make money from selling things that don’t work).

The Government’s response to the report was mostly as truly pathetic bit of official waffle, like those letters you get when you write to your Member of Parliament. But it did contain one good thing."In order for the public to make informed choices, it is therefore vitally important that the scientific evidence base for homeopathy is clearly explained and available." (though even that statement is attributed to John Beddington, the Government’s Chief Scientific advisor, rather than something the Government thinks essential).

"“The MHRA will review the labelling requirements under the NRS to ensure that these deliver clarity as to the status of products and their composition."

The proposals in the MHRA Consultation document’

There are a couple of good things in the proposals. The MHRA proposes to end PLRs (decades overdue, but nonetheless welcome).

The MHRA proposes to stop ‘regulating’ (ho ho) “Bach Flower Remedies” as medicines (but seems happy to classify them as food Supplements, another weasel description to evade sensible regulation). That’s sensible because they aren’t medicines. Homeopathic pills most certainly aren’t medicines either but the MHRA seems to have difficulty grasping that, and wants to treat them quite differently from “Flower remedies”

More honest labelling was about the only sensible thing recommended by the Government’s response. On this topic the MHRA proposals verge on the laughable

At present the labelling allowed under the NRS includes

“A homeopathic medicinal product used within the homeopathic tradition for the symptomatic relief of ….”

It is proposed to change this to

“A homeopathic medicinal product licensed only on the basis of safety, quality and use within the homeopathic tradition”

“A homeopathic medicinal product used within the homeopathic tradition for the symptomatic relief of……”

Spot the difference!

The is utterly inadequate. In fact it verges on the pathetic (and on the dishonest). Here is an extract from my full response.

"Sad to say these proposals to remedy the labelling problem are wholly inadequate. They are almost as deceptive as the originals. These labels don‘t come anywhere near to fulfilling the requirement in the government‘s response which said

In order for the public to make informed choices, it is therefore vitally important that the scientific evidence base for homeopathy is clearly explained and available

Why, oh why, cannot the MHRA bring itself to simply tell the truth? It seems to be so stifled by some perversion of political correctness that it is unable to do what it must know is right.

The MHRA must decide whether or not it believes Avogadro‘s number or not.

How many people in the general public realise the ―Each pill contains 30C Arnica Montana‖ means that the ―pills contain no Arnica whatsoever‖? The very mention of the words ―active ingredient‖ will suggest to most people that there is an active ingredient when there is not. This wording alone is both dishonest and deceptive.

The rest of the approved label consists largely of make-believe too.

"If you are pregnant or breastfeeding consult your doctor before use"

What is your doctor meant to advise you about the dangers of taking a few mg of sugar when you are pregnant?

"If you take too much of the product (overdose) speak to a doctor / pharmacist and take this label with you,."

Unless the MHRA has disavowed Avogadro‘s number, an overdose is impossible. To allow a label like this makes the MHRA a laughing stock

http://www.dcscience.net/wp-admin/edit-tags.php?taxonomy=category

Labels should tell the truth in plain language. For example they should say

This product contains no Arnica

There is no evidence that it works for any condition, other than as a placebo

Some comments on regulation of magic medicine

Governments like to regulate things. They should have regulated the banks a bit more. The problem arises when you try to regulate things that are myths. Like homeopathy.

The government appears to believe that "training" will solve all the problems. Training people to believe things that aren’t true can never solve problems. On the contrary, it creates problems. Organisations like the Complementary and Natural Health Care Council (CNHC)do nothing to protect the public, They endanger the public (see Why the CNHC can’t succeed). Their excuse for rejecting complaints that members were making false claims was not to deny that the claims were false, but to say that it didn’t matter because that is what they had been trained to say. That is make-believe regulation.

Follow-up

News today makes one despair of the morality of governments. Remember those obviously fraudulent bomb detectors, no more than a dowsing rod? Although they are now the subject of a fraud investigation, they are still being sold. The government has banned their export to Iraq and Afghanistan, but NOT to anywhere else, This suggests not only that the government is (or at least was) quite happy to believe in dowsing. It also implies that even when they realise that it’s fraud they take the view that that business is far more important than even the most basic morality. No doubt they will allow fraudulent labelling of medicines in order to protect the homeopathic industry

This is another short interruption in the epic self-destruction of chiropractors. In a sense it is more serious. One expects quacks to advocate quackery. What you don’t expect is that the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE) will endorse it. Neither do you expect the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to betray its mandate to make sure that medicines work.

The saga of the NICE low back pain guidance has been the subject of a deluge of criticism, It seems doubtful that the guidance can survive, not least because of its absurd endorsement of chiropractic, at a time when chiropractic is undergoing self-immolation as a consequence of the persecution of Simon Singh by the British Chiropractic Association (see here, and here, and here, and here and thousands of other sites).

The other betrayal has come to the for after the MHRA approved highly misleading labelling of a homeopathic preparation. At the time,
in 2006, when the principle was approved by the MHRA, just about every scientific organisation, even the Royal Society, condemned the action. What was discouraging that the clinical organisations all stayed silent. It is still a mystery why the MHRA made this enormous mistake, Some said that European regulations required it, but that is quite untrue, as Les Rose has shown. It appears to have been the result of a pusillanimous MHRA bowing to pressure from a deeply unscientific Department of Health (a letter from Caroline Flint at the time borders on the surreal).

Published 9 June 2009, doi:10.1136/bmj.b2333Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2333

Letters

Homoeopathic product licence

MHRA label seems to be illegal

The strap line for the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is “We enhance and safeguard the health of the public by ensuring that medicines and medical devices work and are acceptably safe.”

Yet the MHRA has made mockery of its own aims by ignoring the bit about “ensuring that medicines work” and allowing Arnica 30C pills to be labelled: “a homoeopathic medicinal product used within the homoeopathic tradition for the symptomatic relief of sprains, muscular aches, and bruising or swelling after contusions.”1

This label should be illegal anyway because the pills contain no trace of the ingredient on the label, but this deceit has been allowed through a legal loophole for a long time now. If you sold strawberry jam that contained not a trace of strawberry you’d be in trouble.

But I can see no legal loophole that allows the manufacturers of Arnica 30C to evade the provisions of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008. One of the 31 commercial practices which are in all circumstances considered unfair is “falsely claiming that a product is able to cure illnesses, dysfunction, or malformations.”

The consumer protection laws apply to the way that “the average consumer” will interpret the label. The average consumer is unlikely to know that “used within the homoeopathic tradition” is a form of weasel words that actually means “there isn’t a jot of evidence that the medicine works.”

Since there is not the slightest evidence that Arnica 30C pills provide symptomatic relief of sprains, etc, the labelling that the MHRA has approved seems to be illegal. The MHRA is not selling anything itself, so I presume that it won’t find itself in court, but anyone who follows its advice could well do so.

References

It is, I suppose, just a sign of the chaos that reigns in the multiple agencies and quangos responsible for ‘regulation’ that one arm of government proposes action that a different branch would consider illegal. That is an inevitable consequence of trying to regulate something without first deciding whether it is nonsense or not. The Department of Health appears to be quite incapable of grasping this simple and obvious fact.

Follow-up

Health: best treatments. The Guardian seems to the be picking up BMJ stories and ran this one.